After my return from Flanders [circa 1782], the Self-portrait in a Straw Hat and several other works of mine, were the cause of Joseph Vernet's decision to propose me as a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Monsieur Pierre, then Premier peintre du Roi (first Painter to the King), made strong opposition, not wishing, he said, that women should be admitted. ... Monsieur Pierre, a very mediocre painter, was a clever man. Besides, he was rich, ... His opposition might have become fatal to me if all true picture-lovers had not been associated with the Academy, and if they had not formed a cabal, in my favour, against M. Pierre's. At last I was admitted ...
^University of Pennsylvania, Memoirs of Madame Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Translated by Lionel Strachey, Copyright 1903, by Doubleday, Page & Company, Published, October, 1903
Bibliography
Nicolas Lesur & Olivier Aaron, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre 1714-1789 Premier peintre du roi, Paris, Arthena, 2009, ISBN 978-2-903239-41-1
Marc Furcy-Raynaud, Correspondance de M. d'Angiviller avec Pierre, J. Schemit, Paris, 2 volumes, 1905–07
Olivier Aaron, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, 1714-1789, Cahiers du Dessin Français, issue 9, Galerie de Bayser, Paris; Ars Libri, Boston, 1993
Christian Michel, Charles-Nicolas Cochin et l'art des Lumières, École française de Rome, Rome, 1993 (Contains Pierre's letter on the causes of the decadence in the art of France)
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